Shaun White Snowboarding Target Edition Review

What starts off looking like a pro ends up turning into a bit of a gaper.

Amped 2 and 1080 Snowboarding hold special places in the hearts of many gamers. These two titles were precursors to Skate's realistic approach to action sports and proved that you didn't need excessive flash or in-yo-face personas to create an awesome experience. Personally, I've been eagerly awaiting the day when someone would do Amped 2 and 1080 justice with a snowboarding game dedicated to a more realistic experience. Ubisoft's Shaun White Snowboarding fulfills some of that promise, but doesn't quite reach the peak.

Shaun White is looking for the next great snowboarding talent and he thinks you may have what it takes. To prove yourself, you'll need to collect a series of coins spread across four mountains and compete in a variety of challenges. Succeed and you'll get to take on the ginger giant of snowboarding. Fail and, well, failure is not an option. That's about as deep as the storyline for SWS gets, which is just fine as Shaun White is a better athlete than actor and "story" really isn't what brings folks to an action sports game.

Target Edition Content

The Target Edition comes with a whole extra mountain. The Target branded mountain is smaller and less interesting than the others included on disc. However, it is still an extra playground with new challenges and jumps.

To Ubisoft's credit, the Target mountain is mixed into the main story. After completing the first section of the story mode, you will be whisked away to Target mountain where you will assume the role of Shaun White. As in real life, Shaun has super powers and can do unbelievable tricks that would make an SSX character crap his pants. Goodbye realism! Also included is some extra gear, though you won't really miss it if you don't get this edition.

The good news is that the Target Edition costs the same as the regular edition -- you just have to buy it at Target. That kind of makes it the no-brainer version to pick up.

Taking a page from EA's Skate, SWS puts its control focus on the thumbsticks and triggers. The Right Thumbstick is used to perform a variety of grabs with the Right Trigger working for jumps and tweaks. The aerial moves are simple and a bit too easy to pull off, though. Rather than using something similar to Skate's Flickit system, SWS just asks you to push in one of eight directions to perform a grab. A second set of grabs is accessed by clicking in on the Right Thumbstick. Any complexity in moves comes from adding flips and spins, which at least make it harder to nail your landing. Still, it's just way too easy to master Shaun White within the first hour.

Not to overdo the comparisons to Skate, but SWS takes on much of the same philosophy. You're given a set of mountains (Alaska, Park City, Europe and Japan) but the focus on a storyline or goals is minimal. It's really just about chilling the hell out and riding down the mountain. And that is SWS's strength, because the mountains are fantastic playgrounds.

Though you only ride down one face of the mountain, you can go from the peak to base, a ride that takes up to ten minutes. At the peak are a few other riders, lots of places for big air, and deadly crevices. Move down the mountain and you hit the forest, where there are trees to dodge and natural structures to jib (AKA grid). Towards the bottom is the park section, where man-made half pipes and rails await (along with loads of AI riders).

The concept for big, full, open mountains is great and Ubisoft Montreal pulled this off almost to perfection. Sure, there's a little too much structure in some areas, where you almost feel guided by the "natural" placement of conveniently located jumps and rails, but overall the four mountains are well designed and enjoyable to explore. Were there more depth to the gameplay -- such as any sort of learning curve at all -- then just riding down the mountains could eat up hours of your time. But since things are just way too easy and landing far, far too forgiving, the mountains get boring too quickly. Soon enough, you'll want to tackle the "game" aspects of SWS.

Sprinkled across each mountain are a series of challenges. These challenges can be tackled either alone or with friends online. In fact, you can play all of SWS offline or online. Though, of course, it's a lot more fun to play with friends. Either way, you must make your way to a challenge marker and give it a go. In multiplayer, you'll be able to choose whom to invite to a challenge and then they can either accept or reject. It's a smart system that works well.